[Religion and Revolution]: Feedback and Questions

[Marla_Singer]

The possibly of a power entering from the Pacific or South to prevent the clustering together of all the powers in the Northern continent, which leads to slower development and more conflict and many parts of the map untouched.

You're thinking about RAR Americas map right? I agree with you. The Dutch have already been sent to the Caribbeans, but I agree that England, Sweden and France in the North is still too much.

The best would probably to move the Swedes South at the level of Rio de la Plata. That' would be funnier in terms of gameplay (even though it's not historically relevant but it's not the mos important I believe here). So this way we would have on the East side from North to South: Denmark (that we could move closer to Newfoundland as Iceland is really a bad spot), France, England, Spain (in the Gulf of Mexico), the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden. And then on the West side near Alaska: Russia.

What do you think?

 

[Marla_Singer]

@Schmiddie, @devolution: may I propose you a corrected version of RAR Americas map (with the Swedes in Argentina) so that it would be added to the next version of 2.7 mod?

 

[Marla_Singer]

I've been working on a very large map prototype (300x150 tiles of size, nearly twice bigger than a gigantic map), and I stumbled on something really unexpected: the globe view fully works on it!!

So apparently the bug doesn't come from the map size only. Maybe it's also a matter of format. The map I created (based on earth) is wider than it is tall. Gigantic maps experienced up untill now were all taller than they were wide. It's worth being noted though that it's a very raw prototype, with only grassland and ocean tiles, but I don't believe this impacts globe view.

Enlarge map

 

[R_TEAM]

Wow - this is really unexpected ....
But prove the rule - only if you know the source code, you know exactly wats going on ... all other time it is a shot in the dark or at best in grey area ...

regards

 

[Schmiddie]

@Schmiddie, @devolution: may I propose you a corrected version of RAR Americas map (with the Swedes in Argentina) so that it would be added to the next version of 2.7 mod?

I will think about that.

But I'm currently not working on the mod. Maybe in a few weeks I will start modding again.

 

[Drunk-Monk]

You're thinking about RAR Americas map right?

Actually I haven't played with that map. I have just used A_New_World, where the AI tends to all cluster together on the same continent, handicapping themselves and the natives, and the player has the rest of the map to themselves.

Some more suggestions:

Have you considered changing the methods by which the Natives acquire Guns and Horses? Historically, the Natives acquired them also through independent trade or theft, so perhaps this could be simulated by events, or a kind of diffusion in which by stockpiling large amounts of Weapons or Horses increase the likelihood of the Natives acquiring them. Also as of now the Natives have no use for Blades, whereas historically, the introduction of metal tools and weapons was very important.

Another thing that seems to be missing, is the overexploitation of resources, this had an important impact historically in the Americas, for example with the Beaver-fur trade and Bison. As the mod has so many resources this would be balanced, as the game could give you a warning and you have the opportunity to retrain. After exhausting a premium fur site you could cut the forest down and start growing barley for example, it would also encourage constant expansion rather than the situation now, in which you just need to develop some key industries and then watch as the money rolls in.

I feel at the moment there needs to be a streamlining in the amount of military promotions available. Many seem to be very repetitive, for example Forced March is a better version of Explorer. Homeland Guard an overpowered form of Minuteman. I think that the Animal Hunter promotions should be restricted to the Scout and the Whaling Boat, as its pretty useless for every other unit. The Piracy and Merchant Vessel promotions also provide a negative attribute, which goes against the positive manner of the other promotions, and the Great Discoverer promotion is very overpowered.

Traits:

The Experienced General trait should apply to all the military units, as of now it doesn't include Conquistadores, European Line Infantry, Cavalry etc. The Experienced Admiral Trait does not include Man-O-War or any of the trade ships.

The Determined trait is far too strong, at 100% against the REF, it should be cut by at least half.

Consider renaming the "Undemanding" trait, its definitely not a character trait that would be associated with a great leader. As its boosts production whilst requiring less resources, maybe something like efficient might be more appropriate?

Question:

Why are Rangers and Native Mercenaries in pairs, whilst every other Infantry unit is in a trio?

 

[stefmaster]

A quick question:
Once in a while a message occurs that e.g. an expert farmer in Jamestown wants to join my nation.
But this unit is in a foreign town and doesn´t belong to my nation.
How can he join me? Do I have to capture him?

 

[Marla_Singer]

A quick question:
Once in a while a message occurs that e.g. an expert farmer in Jamestown wants to join my nation.
But this unit is in a foreign town and doesn´t belong to my nation.
How can he join me? Do I have to capture him?

If I think about the same event, you would get the free unit if you say "yes", and it will then belong to you. However, it may irritate the European power from which comes the colonist in which case you would be getting -1 in relation with him.

 

[stefmaster]

I think this is not an Event openend in a window and there is no choice saying "yes" or "no" either!
It appears at the message bar between two turns and at the same time the opponent City, where this unit belongs to, lights up at overview map
Are you sure that I automatically get this unit ?

 

[Hecur]

i thought this hapens when this event happens for the AI

 

[devolution]

I have really enjoyed 2.7, there has been really positive changes to the AI and large performance improvements. Thanks for all the hard work.

My suggestions and observations:

General -

The possibly of a power entering from the Pacific or South to prevent the clustering together of all the powers in the Northern continent, which leads to slower development and more conflict and many parts of the map untouched.

- I leave this to the map makers. We can't really do this in general due to how the random map generator / starting positions work.

Roads should automatically be built on the tile a settlement is founded on and they should upgrade with the town hall to represent the towns infrastructure as it grows.

- Already implemented for a while. When a townhall is built, the city tile gets a free plastered road. When the trainstation is build, the city tile gets a paved country road. (Not totally sure if those are the atual names!)

Maybe rename coastal ships to flotilla or fleet as they seem to represent many boats. The term small / large boat also seems a little odd when all the other units have historical names.

- We need to find some better names for them, maybe someone can contribute better names (English & German)

The AI loves to spam massive stacks of coastal ships, which are then easy targets for privateers.

- Agree, will have the AI produce less of them. Generally it underproduces wagons and overproduces coastal transports.

Increase the space between cities to two squares. This will prevent the AI from spamming cities that cannibalise each others resources.

- Easily modifed in GlobalDefinesAlt.xml

Russian AI seems to be poor at building roads.

- There is no reason why it should be better or worse, the Russians should behave just like any other AI.

To move or change the value of the Religious Founding Fathers, Nathaniel Hawthorne's bonus is very strong in comparison to Tome de Sousa.

- There are many imbalances at the moment, I don't really have the time to correct them since I want to focus on AI work. Patches are welcome!

The AI's reaction to declaration of Independence is strange, Simon Bolivar gave me units but several turns later declared war at pleased with a really weak invasion force.

- This is just silly AI behavour. I'll add it to the list of stuff to look at.

I feel you should take a look at rebalancing the constitution mechanic. Perhaps "All men are free" should allow you to turn the slaves into free colonists. "Right to Bear Arms" should do more than add a trivial boost to colonists.

- The constitution (or civics) are rather silly and imbalanced. An overhaul is needed at some point. We really should merge in @Nightinggale 's civeffects and get a proper tech tree and civics, but that would require a lot of programmer time. Anyone feel like stepping up ?

I'd like to see more boom and bust events, this would require you to make the most of your specialists and all the new resources in the game, and add more challenge. As of now the players economic strategy just seems revolve around having to prepare for diminishing returns.

- Not too hard to implement and could be done in python. This is something someone could contribute without having to understand (too much of) the DLL.

I would like to see more challenge in the Revolution, perhaps as happened in history pre-rebellion the King could deploy units or build forts in your lands. Or the Rebellion rate would be capped at 75% relying on you facing a little more struggle at the start of the Rebellion, rather than a universal consensus that the Rebellion is good.

- The revolution aspect is the weakest point of the game in my opinion, but we don't have resources to rework it.

Military -


If the Natives kill units like rangers / native mercenaries etc they don't receive guns, this should be brought in line with the other units

- I agree that the natives should be able to plunder weapons from all armed units. Added to the list.

Take away the ability to attach Great Generals to scouts and settler militias, the AI likes to do this does this to with obviously suboptimal results.

- More poor AI decision making. Added to the list.

When natives offer to sell you mercenaries it seems that you can always get them for half price by choosing "That is too expensive" option.

- Currently the only downside is a 50% chance to get the tribes's attitude towards you reduced by 1 point. I agree that this is not enough and I'd like to rework it into being a chance for the tribe to refuse contact instead (like when bargaining fails)

During colonial wars enacted by your King there seems to be no end point or recognition of the war, destroying the opposition colonies doesn't provoke a reaction from your King and also doesn't seem to have any bearing on your relationship with the hostile King.

- I am working on having offensive wars against fellow Europeans have more consequences.

Tweak the Kings AI it seems to love landing units either directly outside the strongest cities or in remote areas which leads to problems in attacking.

- I don't have enough data about what the King does since it happens so late. If you have a save where the King behaves poorly, do upload it for inspection! I have noticed that the king does rather poorly on island maps and terribly when the bulk of the players cities are far inland / towards the west, protected by borders of other players or large bodies of water.

Economy -

Financial demands from the Church / Pirates / King and Tribes selling units, should increase with income / rebellion level as its trivial to buy slaves and pay off Pirates during the late game.

- I agree that they should scale with the game progress \ wealth if of the player.

The Tool factory seems inexpensive compared to other comparable buildings.

- Not sure

The Corvette seems to be overpriced in comparison to its abilties.

- Several ships should have some form of gentle rebalance and I like the proposal in the "A little bit about ships..." thread,

Change the prices and resources of the late game wagons, as of now they are far too cheap. The final wagon, seems to serve no purpose as it is outclassed by the carriage. The carriage being able to carry other wagons is also pretty exploitative.

- Need some consensus here. Wagons shouldn't be too expensive for many reasons (the primary one being the AI). As for the carriage carrying other wagons, that sounds a bit like an exploit! I'll look into it.

I feel you should raise the price of Merchant ships in Europe, or require that the high end merchant ships demand a port with a dock to function, as of now why build anything other than the Galleon?

- I agree that galleons are too much of the "ultimate ship", good at everything and simply a replacement for all other ships. Note sure what the best way is to correct this though.

 

[TheIO]

I'd let other ships carry the big stuff too, not just Galleons.

 

[Sarin]

That made me get an idea.

How about, instead of transporting the treasure whole, we had to move it to colony, then break it down to gold, silver and gems amounting the value of the treasure, using some static conversion ratio, not the price in europe? It would allow other ships carry the treasure, and as a bonus, you could actually crash the market by flooding the Europe with them, which is pretty much what happened in reality.

 

[dmalleus]

Hello everyone.
I downloaded 2.7 vesion yesterday, and many improvements were made, good job!

I still have a question/suggestion though. Leaders of Spain (Cortes and Bolivar) have no traits to reflect the fact how many native people were integrated (voluntarily or by force) into their colonies. Historically, Cortes took considerable effort to convert native people. Religious aspect as a whole was a big deal. Also he didn't just smash every tribe he met but formed alliances with some tribes to fight other tribes (Aztecs at first) instead. Even today, a solid part of population in say Mexico, Peru, Bolivia or Argentina are at least partially indigenous.

In order to reflect that, I suggest to remove one of Cortes' traits in favour of Enterprising trait (in the future). I know three leaders already have it, maybe one of them deserves some other trait (e.g. Johan Printz was a builder and a trader too). Or perhaps some inherent trait to Spain as a whole? For now I simply gave Enterprising trait to Cortes instead of Disciplined.

 

[dmalleus]

I'd let other ships carry the big stuff too, not just Galleons.

I agree. Imho, if Treasure occupies 3 cargo spaces, it should be easily transported with any merchant ship except Caravel. I simply change number in "iRequiredTransportSize" command from 6 to 3. Galleons still have the adventage of carrying 2 Treasures at once.

 

[digvoo]

Lumber and stone are included in total production value in colonies, but they are not included in storage value: https://prnt.sc/inm9x0 and https://prnt.sc/inmlso
Should lumber and stone be included in total production at all?

 

[Drunk-Monk]

Thanks for your detailed response and continued hard work on the mod. I have uploaded a 2.7 savegame which demonstrates the AI's poor decision making, I also made an earlier post in the bug thread which also collects a number of my issues with the mod.

- Already implemented for a while. When a townhall is built, the city tile gets a free plastered road. When the trainstation is build, the city tile gets a paved country road. (Not totally sure if those are the atual names!)

Good to know, though I have a feeling this might not be documented.

- Not too hard to implement and could be done in python. This is something someone could contribute without having to understand (too much of) the DLL.

I have little knowledge of modding, but I could contribute some ideas or flavour text for economic events.

- We need to find some better names for them, maybe someone can contribute better names (English & German)

As a native speaker of English, "Small Coastal Fleet" and "Large Coastal Fleet" are fine, maybe make a poll with some of the options?

 

[ederl]

I like the concept and the new ideas of the mod, there are just a few points that i think should be implemented (or maybe I just don't understand):

I just can't find any improvement, which uses the benefits of "banana trees", "coconut trees" and "oasis". I know, for bananas and coconuts, the best improvement to get the food bonus is a "Large Cocoa Plantation" and for oasis a "Large Farm" and to work on it with a farmer, I would find it great, if there would be just a small bonus of food for the improvement on the respective resource.

I would find it very interesting, if "Hardy Pioneers" could build better improvements (not just faster) than normal pioneers or just to give only the Hardy Pioneers the opportunity to build a "Plastered Country Road", to make them more useful.

I also think, that the "Plastered Country Road" should not just cost some gold, but also a little amount of the resource stone. Maybe there could be implemented a new road type called "railway track" in the future which would cost some iron and wood and trains, that are faster than carriages and can transport a bigger amount of troops (and maybe implement bandits, that can pillage trains or destroy the railway track). I think that railways were very important at that time.

If bandits or train robberies (later in game) are implemented (i would call them great bandits, such as jesse james or bonnie and clyde), i suggest them maybe to be invisible to make it more difficult to catch them and an opportunity to expose a bounty. There could also be implemented some weak pirates, that are barbarian and spawn later in game to threaten the caravels a bit more than the sea-animals do.

One point i miss, compared to the vanilla civ 4, is the maintenance costs. In my opinion, this would make it especially in the end game much more interesting to balance the costs of the military units with the income of the resource trade.

I really enjoy the weather, that occurs on the sea. Maybe there is a possibility to make those "storms" bigger than just one or two terrain fields like real storm cells and give the storms the ability to move to jungles or ice to make it for land units more difficult to survive in those dangerous areas (like tornados should just occur in the mediterran area).

I like the random units that emigrate to the new world because of the religion, but I don't like the opportunity to buy just any expert in europe to emigrate to the new world from the beginning on, I think, it should be more difficult at the beginning to buy for example a Master Blacksmith or a Master Tobacconist just by paying an amount of money. A possibility to make some requirements for the experts are maybe to have a certain amount of founding father points to unlock them or something like that...

... and i miss a little bit the variety of random events during the game.

It would be really nice if some of my ideas could be implemented soon or later, I thank you for all the work you spent on this mod, it's great and please excuse my poor english, I'm from Austria and English is not the yellow from the egg...

 

[Schmiddie]

Thank you for your kind feedback. But to be honest...modding has currently stopped and I don't think that we will start again shortly.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

...It would be really nice if some of my ideas could be implemented soon or later, I thank you for all the work you spent on this mod, it's great and please excuse my poor english, I'm from Austria and English is not the yellow from the egg...

There are swabians with far worse english.

And someone from Austria as you can easily claim to be from Australia and hardly anyone would notice the difference between both far southern lands